University of California International and Area Studies

This paper discusses the connections between political dissent, urban spaces, normalization, conflict and national identity. Two questions are central to this paper: 1) How are social and political marginality being constructed, negotiated and resisted in Denmark? 2) What insights are generated when groups defined as 'marginal' by the state challenge state authority and compete for control of urban spaces?

Christiania is a key cultural icon in Danish society and widely known as one of the oldest, most successful and politically active squatter communities in Europe. In the center of Copenhagen, moments walk from the Danish Parliament, one-thousand citizen-activists have created an alternative, self-governed community on the remains of a former military base.

In 2002 a new government was elected in Denmark, and Christiania's future as a legitimized "social experiment" under the previous Social Democratic government was in doubt. The new government, elected on a neoliberal agenda that promised significant reform of the welfare state, began plans to close the squatter community. The stated goals are to end the flourishing illegal hash trade, privatize and develop the area. Equally important, normalization will curtail this trenchant and oppositional political voice by transforming this prime location, just minutes walk from downtown Copenhagen, from a space of alterity and opposition into a marketable place comprised of privately owned homes and businesses.

I use the example of the engagements and contentions surrounding Christiania's normalization (privatization) to demonstrate how the Danish state is attempting to minimize political dissent by privatizing this 35-year old squatter community and to examine significant changes occurring in Danish society and Scandinavian welfare state.